Companies House confirms local statutory registers for directors, secretaries and PSCs to be abolished – key points for businesses

Posted: 02/09/2025

Companies House has confirmed that, from 18 November 2025, companies will no longer be required to maintain their own 'local' statutory registers of directors, directors' residential addresses, company secretaries and persons with significant control (PSCs).

These changes are being introduced alongside the key rollout of mandatory identity verification, meaning businesses will need to engage with a fast-changing compliance landscape within a relatively short period of time – click here to read more.

Companies must provide up-to-date information

Information that would be entered in the local registers will still need to be provided to (and maintained on central registers at) Companies House. Consequently, this will place even greater importance on companies and their officers submitting timely and accurate filings.

Even if no longer maintained, companies must nevertheless ensure that their local statutory registers are retained for the lifespan of the company, as part of their statutory record-keeping obligations.

Register of members and other internal registers

Companies will need to maintain their own register of members (including some anticipated requirements mentioned below). From 18 November 2025, it will no longer be an option for private companies to store their register of members on a central register at Companies House.

Likewise, the changes do not affect other internal registers, such as registers in relation to transfers, charges or disclosed interests in shares; while these are 'optional', it is best practice for companies to maintain these registers.

Future additional requirements

• Standardised information for register of members - to increase the transparency of corporate ownership, registers of members will need to include certain ‘required information’. For individual members, this means setting out their forename (in full, not initials) and surname, together with a service address. For corporate members and firms, their corporate or firm name and a service address will be required. In each case, the register must note the date the person was entered as a member.
• Further obligations - new members will need to provide the required information and existing members must update the company of any change in the required information about the member, in each case within two months of becoming a member/any such change. Any person who fails to comply will commit a criminal offence. Companies must record the new information along with the date of change in the register of members. Non-traded companies must keep the old information in the register. 
  Companies will have the power to request, by notice, a member to provide any of the required information, and members must comply with such notice within one month of the notice being given. Notably, a person who fails to respond (or who provides information that is misleading, false or deceptive without a reasonable excuse) will be guilty of a criminal offence.
• One-off shareholder statements - to bring the Registrar’s records up to date, there will be a requirement to provide a full list of shareholders in the case of non-traded companies (and, in respect of a listed company, those holding at least 5% of any share class).

Companies House has yet to confirm when these additional requirements regarding registers of members and one-off shareholder statements will be implemented. Nonetheless, advance preparation is key.

How businesses can prepare

In anticipation of the changes, companies should:

• Consider how existing administrative processes for updating registers may need to change and whether they will continue to maintain their own non-statutory records for internal audit and governance purposes (this may be particularly helpful for larger businesses or those with more complex structures);
• Review their existing statutory registers, obtain any additional information that may be required (for example, from existing members) and, in advance of the various other statutory registers being centralised, ensure that all filings at Companies House are up-to-date; and
• If they are currently using the central register, begin forming their own register of members with all the requisite information.

For a detailed guide on the range of corporate reforms, including key considerations for businesses, click here.  

Companies House has launched a dedicated website outlining the changes. A range of factsheets is also available here. If you have any concerns about the reforms or would like to discuss their impact in more detail, please contact our specialist corporate team. We will be monitoring developments and providing further updates in due course.

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